The Tragedy Of Ashtoret, Part 2: Survival

The Tragedy of Ashtoret, Part 2: Survival

This is a continuation of my post-mortem for my first character's journey through Baldur's Gate 3. Spoilers for the entire game lie below the cut. If you read further, I can no longer be held responsible for what gets spoiled for you.

Part 1

Part 3

Part 4

If there's one trait that defines the arc of Ashtoret's travels, it's their absolute determination to survive. Despite knowing that they had a time limit hanging over their heads, despite knowing and accepting and outright stating that if they began to Change, they would need to be put down like a rabid dog for the sake of everyone else, they were never the sort to simply lay down and die until there was absolutely no other choice.

Survival above all else. And in the wilds, as well they knew from their years traveling as a Ranger, there is no moral limit to what an animal will do when its life is threatened. When people hear they are a Ranger, they make assumptions of camping beneath the stars, hunting beasties quietly in the woods, enjoying an existence in harmony with nature only outmatched by the Druids. And it is that, all of it.

But it's also nights curled in to fresh skins still warm with blood to survive the bitter cold. Finding a family of deer and slaughtering the mother to get enough meat to last another week. Stabbing a dagger into the neck of an owlbear cub because its only life after its mother passed would be starvation and it's more merciful to end it.

Survival means using every tool you have to your advantage, including the wits and guile afforded intelligent creatures, to get out of a situation. It means playing along with all sides of a conflict until you're sure of which one you can safely antagonize, even if you despise all of them.

Ashtoret listened to all sides of the conflict at the grove. Kagha was on their shitlist for daring to imprison and likely kill a literal child with her poisonous pet, but they knew their group wouldn't survive the confrontation with the entire grove full of druids. To survive, they had to talk their way deep into the Goblin Camp, then sneak their way out with their compatriots, assassinating their foes along the way.

Survival meant not setting one damned foot towards the githyanki creche once the first meeting with their gatekeepers proved that they would seek to 'cleanse' the infection by killing, not healing. Even if Lae'zel disagreed, it wasn't worth the risk.

Survival meant that when Isobel fell unconscious and was spirited away from the Last Light Inn, every single other person in that area that was now afflicted by the Shadow Curse, had to die. That they couldn't prioritize keeping the one ally to keep her head, Jaheira, alive.

It meant playing along with the Cult of the Absolute and how their zealots might expect initiates to behave. (Even if it meant coldly ordering someone to kill themselves and watching them do it. More on that in another post.) It meant not killing Balthazar on-sight, despite how disgusting Ashtoret found his actions and general demeanor both. It meant playing along with Raphael, even if they never intended to make any sort of deal with him.

Surviving also meant not standing in the way of Shadowheart when she prepared to level her lance at the Nightsong to complete her ascension as the Dark Justiciar. They knew it wasn't right. But they didn't want to fight her, and neither did they want to die for their conscience twisting their guts.

Their will to survive made them promise to deliver Gortash Orin's head in the middle of his 'coronation', then turn around and promise Gortash's filthy corpse to Orin in exchange for the hostage she had taken. Orin, despite being utterly unhinged, was a straightforward foe who wanted a bloody fight in the eyes of Bhaal. Her lust for violence could be trusted. Gortash and his honeyed words and penchant for manipulation absolutely could not. (Which is ironic, when one considers Ashtoret's implicit trust in the Emperor. The determining factor, I think, was that Gortash actively screwed over Karlach, while The Emperor didn't directly screw over anyone that they knew or cared about.)

(Speaking of, survival also played into Ashtoret's decision to trust in The Emperor, rather than side with the githyanki attempting to free their captured, enslaved prince. The Emperor had been ensuring their survival thus far. The githyanki were an unknown factor. If the prince were freed, he could just as easily turn on them and slaughter them all for being larval ghaik, just like the rest of his kin. Better the devil they knew, the one that they knew was protecting them, even if they didn't care much for keeping a sentient being imprisoned.)

Survival meant playing along and leaning in to the traits Sarevok and the other Bhaalists wanted to see when facing the Murder Tribunal to gain access to Orin and save Lae'zel from capture. It meant letting their absolute joy at putting a bloody end to Gortash for all he'd done infect their voice, conveying a level of bloodlust not actually inherent within them. It meant slaughtering the little celestial detective (who was already on their shitlist for profiling the tiefling refugees as responsible for the series of murders) without a moment's hesitation and accepting a baptism in blood to become an Unholy Assassin of Bhaal.

Did Ashtoret much care for the rot of Bhaal spreading through the sewers and the city itself like a cancer? No. Could they and theirs survive the battle against the entire cult right then and there? Also, no. Thus, they turned an 'innocent' into a pincushion and sank deep into a bath of blood, overflowing with unholy power.

This would not be the only time a baptism of blood marked their decision to take an innocent life in service of reaching or fighting the Elder Brain. In fact, one might call their bloody baptism and "rebirth" as an Unholy Assassin symbolic foreshadowing for their much more literal rebirth upon stealing the life of Orpheus while the afterbirth of their old flesh sloughed off of their new illithid form.

Lastly, survival meant that they did not feel nearly the moral qualms one might argue that they should with their new diet. It requires ending an intelligent, sentient, sapient life. But as a hunter, they're all too familiar with needing to take life to preserve their own. Illithid feast upon brain matter as surely as a wolf would feast upon a lamb, and only a fool would shame the wolf for acting in accordance with its nature.

For the sake of their own continued existence, they would deny that they are falling into Nature's design for a mind flayer. That they are above their baser instincts and will end themselves before they slip into becoming a true monstrosity.

However, they of all people should have known that no man nor beast on any plane is truly so above their instincts as they might believe.

me and the mutuals discussing themes and motifs

So the brainworms bit hard and words fell out. A mystery. Be warned, this is NSFT/W and has MAJOR SPOILERS for Act 3 of BG3 and the ending!

FFXIV Write Day 14 - Clear

Unsundered Era, mild NSFW.

Aphroditos=Ancient!Xander Hestia=Ancient!Celeste

It never failed: If Hades- now the new Emet-Selch- called, the man named Azem, once known as Aphroditos, would answer his summons. As surely as Hades would answer his, whatever his needs.

The intent had been to share a celebratory drink. A clinking of glasses, a transparent rose wine, perhaps a shared meal because Hestia had dropped by earlier in the day with something fresh and delicious and unlike anything either of them could create.

Then, when masks and hoods and propriety were due to return, Hades took hold of his old friend's hand. And Aphroditos found he didn't have the heart or mind to pull it away, head thick and buzzing and humming with the alcohol.

Hades kissed with the desperation of a man wandering for a moon in the desert who'd just come upon an oasis. Aphroditos, in a brief moment of sobriety snatching through the haze, had to admit that Lahabrea's kisses imparted much the same- a cry for closeness, a plea.

Don't leave me alone. I need you. I love you. Don't leave me here to die without you.

Fuck. It was Hades before him. Hades, not Lahabrea.

Don't get distracted. Focus on returning his kisses, his groping. You know his body like it's your own, you should be better at pleasing him than this fumbling!

If Hades noticed any awkwardness or hesitation in his old friend's ever-eager touch, he said nothing. Aphroditos felt his body move as if on autopilot as sweat-slick robes peeled from flesh, tongues tracing prayers along salted flesh and familiar grooves of muscle. (Always so much more than Hades ever gave himself credit for.)

Amid the molten gold honey of Hades' eyes, Aphroditos couldn't help but see the heartbreak in Hestia's when she realized they'd fallen into bed with one another again. They weren't courting, it's not as if she had a claim, but she wanted him and cared for him, and like a thief in the night, there was Aphroditos, stealing Hades away.

Hades took a dominant role that night. Not a role he relished, but one taken out of necessity, as his partner couldn't seem to provide much more than old, memorized routes of pleasure, run as if by an automaton.

Hades buried his face in his lover's neck. Aphroditos found himself wishing for the scrape of beard and stubble. His stomach twisted as he imagined the look of condescension and condemnation upon Lahabrea's face at their Convocation Meeting the next morning when his neck was covered in the bruises Hades sucked into his flesh.

Though his body reacted as ever it did when he and his reticent white-haired friend fell into each other's arms and beds, the new Azem couldn't deny that he took little actual pleasure from the interaction. If anything, he felt lonely and empty, despite the new Emet-Selch clinging to him and still lingering inside, as if hesitant to part their bodies for even a moment.

Clarity after sex was a damnable cliche for a reason, and Azem hated that this episode left him feeling like he should just disentangle himself and leave while his empathy told him he needed to at least wait until his friend and colleague awoke before setting off.

The hours that Emet-Selch slept felt absolutely interminable. The second Azem had enough freedom of movement to get up without waking him, he took advantage of his friend's showers to clean the remnants of the previous night off and out of him.

...and of course, the noise of the showers would wake him. Emet-Selch sat up in the bed, half-covered by his blanket and rubbing his eyes as Azem, freshly cleaned, walked back to the bed and took a seat at the end of it.

"Aph, it's half-past three, what in blazes do you think you're doing? Come back to bed and finish getting a proper night's sleep. We have work soon and I want to enjoy this."

The whine and demand implicit in his tone only made Azem sigh. "I- Look. Hades. We can't keep doing this. Things are... different than they were when we were younger. You have someone else you're sort of dating, and I've got my thing going with Lahabrea, and I just- I can't."

He could feel Hades' shoulders square, his posture bristle as he pulled the blankets tighter to his chest.

"Hades, we tried this, remember? We tried, and tried, and kept trying, and it just never worked out. You were never as invested as I was- or weren't being honest with your intentions. I got tired of the games, and it's clear that each time we do this, we're only making the situation worse. So whatever this is, it needs to stop."

Out of the corner of his eye, Azem could see the new Emet-Selch shaking with barely-suppressed fury, eyes narrowed into slits as if that would conceal the sadness in them.

"Well, if my presence is so objectionable, then leave. I'll enjoy the rest of my evening alone, and meet you at the Convocation Hall when it's time for business, Azem."

As ever, the man hid behind theatrics and passive-aggression when emotional honesty would have served him better. Azem sighed and rose from the bed, crossing to the door.

He waited for the inevitable cry of "Wait!" or "And just where do you think you're going?" that usually followed when he called Emet-Selch on his bluff. It never came.

Masked and hooded once more, Azem stepped out of his old friend's apartment, and slowly made his way into the late-night streets of Amaurot. If any noticed their Counselor to the People shambling back to his own quarters at unthinkable hours of the morning, they didn't bother to offer comment.

The reason I like history so much is the way you can see how unchanging human nature is. People have always been doing the same things, with different tools. Ancient Sumerians writing "I am not warning you now in hopes that you'll actually do anything, I am writing this to later prove that I warned you and you did nothing" messages in clay tablets like you'd write an office e-mail. Ancient philosophers talking about shepherds and archers, explaining the exact same problem you had this morning, like they're personally calling you out.

200 years ago, somebody was complaining about Kids These Days burying their faces in books in order to avoid socialising just the same as someone else is now ranting how their children would rather browse their phones than listen to them rant. People were arguing anonymously in the posting boards and newspaper sections just the same as they do on the internet. Someone in the bronze age woke up at 5 am to the sound of toddlers fighting over complete nonsense just the same as someone woke up to the same noises today.

For as long as there have been people, there have been people doing the same kind of things as you. From some dude in a cave with berries for paint, some Roman planning a mosaic on a wall, ancient Chinese noblewoman illustrating her calligraphed poem and some medieval monk decorating the borders of a manuscript and me on my laptop with my stylus pen, we're all just sitting here in our different times and places, wondering why the FUCK are horses so hard to draw.

missing them too